Session Details
Books Bring You the World
K-1 (30 minutes)
- Introduction and I Am a Reader!
- Interactive poem reading from In the Middle of the Night
- Did Laura know she would grow up to be a writer (ask students to make predictions)
- Readaloud of Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten (with optional student volunteers) and discussion of friendship skills
- Movement poem from In the Middle of the Night to give kids a chance to get the wiggles out
- The story behind the story: Snowman-Cold=Puddle
- The idea
- Who does what
- Some excerpts (optional: invite students to answer the equation poems in their own way)
- Show several bits of my writing process
- Write equation poems in front of students with brief examples of brainstorming and drafting
- Share student examples and invite students to write their own equation poems after the video
- Thank you and reminder of the importance of being a reader, a writer, and a good friend
The True Story of Being a Writer
2-3 (45 minutes)
- Introduction and I Am a Reader!
- Echo read a poem from In the Middle of the Night together
- Readaloud of Secrets of the Loon
- Share a simple on-screen story of my writing journey and invite students to find three specific writing techniques
- Share my writing process, using examples/props mostly from Snowman-Cold=Puddle, showing correlations between my own writing and the writing students do:
- the idea
- prewriting/brainstorming
- research
- drafting
- revising
- art/design
- Invite students to solve two riddle poems from Lion of the Sky
- Write equation poems in front of students with brief examples of brainstorming and drafting
- Share student examples and invite students to write their own equation poems after the video
- Thank you and reminder of the importance of being a reader and a writer
The Care and Feeding of Ideas
4-6 (60 minutes)
- Introduction, emphasizing that we are all writers.
- Share my writing journey on-screen and invite them to find specific writing techniques
- How to Be a Writer:
- Look Around
- How to find ideas and treat them kindly
- Show the initial ideas that led to three different picture books
- Finding ideas, not pre-judging ideas
- Ask What If? Why? What Else?
- Using questions in brainstorming, prewriting, drafting, and researching, showing examples from several books
- Model! Using Mentor Texts
- Show how mentor texts shaped two of my picture books
- Read aloud a poem (with optional student participation) from BookSpeak and share its mentor text
- Write Something!
- A draft is never perfect, with an example of an early draft from Lion of the Sky
- Revise
- Getting feedback from other writers (classmates) and my editors (teachers) makes my writing stronger, including examples from many books
- Let’s Write
- Share examples of equation poems from Snowman-Cold=Puddle and write equation poems in front of students (a mentor text example!)
- Invite students to write their own equation poems inspired by an image or a science topic they’re interested in
- Share the craft stick and cup methods of sharing equation poems
- Conclusion
- We are all writers, and we all have something valuable to say.